New cannabis licences issued by Health Canada

On November 20, for consultation purposes, Health Canada issued a document entitled : “Proposed Approach for the Regulation of Cannabis.” This document provides an overview of the laws and regulations that the federal government intend to put in place regarding the cannabis legalization project. They inform us that it will be possible to obtain various types of licenses, including;

– A standard culture license, which will allow a large-scale production and harvesting of products;

– The standard processing license that will permit the large-scale manufacturing, packaging and labeling of consumer products or intra-industry sales, including authorized distributors;

– And a license allowing sales to the public for medical or non-medical purposes, allowing the sale of products to adults who do not hold a medical prescription, but without a distribution and retail system.

The great novelty is found with the licenses for “micro-culture” and “micro-transformation”.

Licenses will indeed be available for these categories, although we do not yet have all the details as to exactly what defines “micro-licenses”. On the other hand, it is mentioned that “micro-culture” will allow small-scale cultivation (it remains to know the maximum production threshold) of cannabis plants and the harvesting of material from these plants, as well as related activities.

Meanwhile, “Micro-transformation” involves a license to manufacture, package and label cannabis products on a small scale for sale to consumers and intra-industry sales, including authorized distributors in the provinces and territories under one jurisdiction under a certain threshold that must be established.

The purpose of these licenses is, among other things, to allow the establishment of a diversified and competitive legal industry comprising large and small players in all regions of the country.

Our law firm is following this issue with keen interest and propose to its clients a legal and regulatory support, in order to obtain a license to cultivate, process or sell cannabis, following the new rules to be issued by the federal government.